


mandrake flesh

by rubyboys



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Drabble, Dreams, F/F, Gen, Implied Relationships, Magic, Nudity, Sleep, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 09:04:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8395687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyboys/pseuds/rubyboys
Summary: Morgana will always believe that the distortion of her body is a small price to pay.





	

She is naked in the morning. 

She is naked, sprawled over her small makeshift bed as if she is a goddess, or, perhaps, a dead cat. She is a pale picture, long legs folded atop one another at the ankles, meeting at the green crook of veins hitched before the expanse of the rest of her feet. Her eyes are open, mouth open, her jaw a hard line even when relaxed in hazy wakefulness. Her skin is a wan colour, white but tinged, contaminated, or made corrupt, by something foreign. 

True wakefulness has not quite battled through into Morgana’s body yet. 

At present, she remains in a whispering place between the realities of cold air, crumpled scratching sheets, damp wood poorly shielding her cabin from harsh Camelot wind, and another place. 

Somewhere warm, and pink. Somewhere where Morgana’s own light breath could belong to, maybe, someone else. A woman enchanting, but bare of magic. A hot mouth, pressed to Morgana’s inner thighs--maybe. Her dark curls forming treetops where they’re gripped between Morgana’s closed fingers. Words too soft to quite make out, but, of course, words of love and requited longing. The bodies of two brave girls, warmly undulating like growing flowers, between the sheets of some big, faraway bed. 

Indeed, the world is cold. And Gwen never loved Morgana like that. 

Morgana will always believe that the distortion of her body is a small price to pay for justice. She won’t just touch the vines and thorns twisted and knotted in her skin, braided up through her legs and stomach to intertwine in gory green ribbons at her hips--she will bite her fingernails into them, sucking in harsh breaths and revelling in the sick pain. She will grasp at the holes between them and tug, tug, unsure whether she’s trying to remove the mandrake root magic from her body, or her body from the magic. 

No, she’s not quite human anymore. And naked, there’s no stark line at which the flesh moves from woman to reptilian. Scales sit beneath the skin of her neck in rigid bumps, mirroring the cold prickled skin of her thighs, arms. 

Morgana’s world does not go beyond her own flesh. But she rises, nonetheless, she rises, beyond sleep and gore. In her mind, she stands like a warrior, bent at the knees, head peeked forward, hands hard and spread wide, just waiting for the sharp burst of magic to scald through each layer of skin. One would, however, think of her more as a brutish mimicry of a dragon. Perhaps, just a lizard. Standing, naked, she is not quite human. Oh, she is cold. 

Cold, and she will snap away the flowers.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i wrote this drabble after i saw a theory that morgana's 'evilness' was the result of morgause using mandrake root on her. i love this idea, and i also wanted to explore the, kind of, side effects of using evil magic, and the way it could physically manifest? i hope you enjoyed it, please do leave a comment :)


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